Is it still a reshuffle if you barely make any changes? MPs give their verdict on the Prime Minister’s changes to her Cabinet.

Every football fan knows you can’t make too many changes during a transfer window without upsetting the team’s balance – so maybe Theresa May was thinking along the same lines with her Cabinet reshuffle on Monday.

The Prime Minister sacked Justine Greening as education secretary, replacing her with work and pensions minister Damian Hinds, while moving another female Secretary of State, Karen Bradley, from her culture brief over to Northern Ireland – a gap created when James Brokenshire stepped down due to ill health.

Some figures were angered by Ms Greening’s departure, given her credentials as the first Conservative education secretary to go to a comprehensive school, while also offering some much needed diversity as an openly gay woman.

Ms Greening is alleged to have been offered the post of welfare secretary but chose to resign instead.

But it was Mrs May’s apparent toothlessness that hit headlines on Tuesday morning. It had been strongly rumoured that she would be sacking Business Secretary Greg Clark and swapping him with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Ex-education secretary Justine Greening

However, according to some media reports, Mr Hunt refused to move and even asked for Mrs May to give him further responsibilities – making him head of the newly named Department for Health and Social Care.

Mr Clark – said to be well-liked by the business sector but seen as a ditherer by some in Whitehall – was allowed to keep his job after Mr Hunt dug-in.

“Ministers who refused to change roles were allowed to simply stay in place as the Prime Minister didn’t feel strong enough to move them, and she now has a Health Secretary and a Business Secretary who she didn’t want to keep in post.

“It also says something that ‘Jeremy’ and ‘Greg’ kept their jobs, but ‘Justine’ was sacked.”

Martin Vickers however, Tory MP for Cleethorpes, said he found it “hard to believe” the PM was bullied into allowing both men to keep their jobs.

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“I don’t believe for one minute that Jeremy Hunt hadn’t made clear to the PM before Monday that he wanted to stay at health and see through the changes he had made.

“It is very hard to believe that she would then try and move him against his will. Yes, you could argue that some leaders wouldn’t give you a choice and would simply sack you.

“But Jeremy Hunt has been a particularly strong defender of the PM in recent weeks and robust in defending the Government on a whole range of issues, so moving him against his will doesn’t seem to weigh up.”

SUPPORTIVE: Cleethorpes MP Martin Vickers

Mr Vickers described the move to bring social care wholly under Mr Hunt’s remit as “sensible” and also welcomed the change at the top of the Department for Education (DfE), which he said he had been “directionless” since Michael Gove’s departure in 2014.

The backbencher said he was “not particularly sorry” to see Ms Greening go and urged her successor Mr Hinds to reconsider the ban on setting up new grammar schools.

“My view is that it is incomprehensible for any Conservative government to have a ban on the creation of grammar schools,” he said.

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“A successful schools, like Caistor Grammar for example, should be able to set up another campus in an area like Cleethorpes if the school, parents and the various local institutions want it.”

He was not the only northern Lincolnshire Tory to hope for a new direction at DfE. Sir Edward Leigh, who represents West Lindsey, has been annoyed at the outgoing Secretary of State’s reluctance to implement a Government manifesto policy to repeal the rule calling for religious schools to fill 50 per cent of new school places with children of other faiths or none.

The Catholic Church decided it would not expand or open new schools as long as the rule was in place, given that it meant it might have to turn down Catholic children despite having spaces available.

Sir Edward, MP for Gainsborough, told Mr Hinds that England’s Catholics were “looking forward to providing thousands of new high-quality free school places when the party commitment is finally implemented”.

The new-look Cabinet

Theresa May's new-look Cabinet team for 2018

IN

Matt Hancock - Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Damian Hinds - Education

Esther McVey - Work & Pensions

NEW JOBS

Brandon Lewis - from Immigration Minister to Party Chairman (And Minister without Portfolio)